One very good thing about being 40licious is that your powers of insight become more finely honed. You can scan situations and people and get a read in mere fractions of a seconds. Bionic, pretty much. However.
However.
However, when you turn your powers on your own 40licious self, you can be in for a world of awakening, and not all of it good. For example.
I have just paid close attention to some of my patterns and I fear that I might have a problem with intimacy. Which might explain why I’ve been laid more than I’ve been married. Not that I’m counting, and not that either happens that often these days, but I can tell you I’ve been married ZERO times. (There was the post-911 Big Sparkly Diamond Engagement, but that doesn’t count at all.) I’m thinking that when it comes time to get to the inner chamber with someone else, I suddenly have to go back to the car for tissues and gum and did I check the antifreeze and maybe I have to vacuum the upholstery … and so on.
So in the spirit of furthering education, if you are dating me, if you plan to date me, or if you mistakenly believe you are dating me, here are some helpful tips to help us both negotiate my issue:
1. I might check out. If I do this, it’s not you, it’s me. In all seriousness. It could go like this: You’re probably being lovely and affectionate, and I’m making up cute couples nicknames for us ala Brangelina and Bennifer. Then suddenly, you zoom in for an innocent peck on my cheek and I feel like I have to run hard and fast and dunk my face in a five-gallon bucket of PinkBerry. Don’t worry, though, this feeling will probably pass. I hope you like PinkBerry too.
2. If #1 occurs, your best bet is to just lay low for a while and let me get my breath back. It’s helpful to know that you are a good and solid person and that you will be there on the other side.
3. For me, if we’re sleeping in the same bed, me putting my pinky under your thigh is exactly the same currency as you spooing on me, only without the sweatiness and awkward positioning. Unless one of us has had a bad dream.
4. I will always tell you the truth. But sometimes you have to ask me very personal questions, because I don’t like to begin hard conversations. I do, however, usually feel better after a hard conversation, and you probably do too.
5. If I break up with you, and then make out with you on the beach the next day, we are probably not exactly broken up. It’s a way for me to establish control.
6. Check in with my vibe from time to time. You might be wondering aloud about if we should retire in cowboy country or Tibet or the East Village, and I might just want to get in the bath and read Real Simple. By myself. With the door closed. It’s not that I don’t want to spend the rest of my years making yak butter sculptures with you — I probably do — but I won’t come up with any good ideas for them unless I’m fully there.
7. Love. Love. Love.
8. Do your own thing. I will like you better. You will like yourself better. Let me miss you. We will have more to talk about when you come home.
9. Be my rock. Be cool. Be sure.
10. It’s never about what it’s about.